EDUCATION BRIEFS
News from Austin Community College & Austin ISD
Austin ISD Meets Oct. 13 and 26 at 5:30 p.m. 4000 S. I-35, Austin www.austinisd.org Austin Community College Board of Trustees Meets Oct. 3 at 3 p.m. 5930 Middle Fiskville Road, Austin. www.austincc.edu MEETINGS WE COVER special education students. Black students in Austin ISD, 6.5% of the student population, accounted for 17.5% of all disciplinary actions during the 2021-22 school year. Students receiving special education services, 13.4% of the district’s student population, accounted for 29.7%. The discipline rate for Black students dropped by 0.2 percentage points from 2020-21 to 2021-22, while the rate for special education students decreased by 11.4 percentage points. DISTRICT HIGHLIGHTS AUSTIN ISD Changes proposed during an Aug. 18 meeting for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 Austin ISD school year calendars would make Election Day a holiday for students. If approved by the AISD board of trustees, Nov. 8, 2022, and Nov. 7, 2023, would become student holidays and professional development days for sta . The move is aimed at making campuses safer as many of the district’s schools are used as public polling sites, according to Jacob Reach, AISD chief of governmental relations and board services. AUSTIN ISD The Texas Education Agency released the 2021-22 accountability ratings for school districts and individual schools on Aug. 15. Austin ISD received an overall B rating, scoring 88 out of 100 points. The TEA did not give ratings in 2020 or 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. AUSTIN ISD Data presented Sept. 1 to the board of trustees shows Austin ISD lags behind in reducing the disproportionate discipline of Black students but is making progress with
ACC advances $770 million bond
AISD board to vote on 2022 23 tax rate
BY CHLOE YOUNG
If approved by Central Texas voters, the bond would go toward expanding ACC’s workforce training in elds, such as health care, advanced manufacturing and infor- mation technology across 11 existing campuses. The founding would also create a new campus in southwest Travis County and reopen and expand the Pinnacle Campus. “We are committed to giving Cen- tral Texans the most opportunity to prepare for the future,” said Nora de Hoyos Comstock, ACC board of trustees vice chair. The bond would not raise the property tax rate, as property values are anticipated to keep rising, said Sydney Pruitt, ACC senior media relations coordinator. A $500,000 household would pay a maximum of $5 per year for the rst ve years and up to $25 per year for the remaining years of the bond, Pruitt said. Disabled residents and seniors 65 and older would not be a ected due to a tax ceiling set by ACC. based on midpoint salaries, according to district o cials. It also includes stipends based on length of service. Additionally, $8 million will go to raise the district’s minimum hourly wage to $16, from $13.50, and another $1 million will go to increasing the minimum hourly pay for bus drivers to $21 from $17. The district is projecting $1.66 billion in revenue. That includes $1.57 billion from local revenue, $62.64 million in state funds and $19.97 million in federal funds.
AUSTIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE The board of trustees voted Aug. 11 to add a $770 million bond to the November ballot.
BY ZACH KEEL
AUSTIN ISD The board of trustees will decide Sept. 29 whether to adopt a proposed 2022-23 tax rate of $0.9966 per $100 of property value. If passed, the rate would be the low- est among surrounding Central Texas school districts, according to Chief Financial O cer Eduardo Ramos. The overall rate is a combination of two property taxes levied by the district—the maintenance and oper- ations rate, or M&O, which pays for ongoing maintenance and operations costs including facility repairs and teacher salaries, and the interest and sinking rate, or I&S, which is used to service bond debt. The proposed M&O rate is $0.8836, and the I&S proposal is $0.113. Based on the median taxable property values for each year, a homeowner would pay slightly more to Austin ISD in 2022-23 than 2021- 2022 in under the proposed rate. Austin ISD income An increasing amount of AISD’s revenue is expected to come from local taxes. Local revenue $1.4B
WHAT’S IN THE BOND?
Austin Community College is putting forward a $770 million bond on the November election.
$200M $100M $100M $80M $75M $75M $40M $30M $25M $15M $15M $10M $5M
Southeast Travis County † Hays Highland Cypress Creek Pinnacle ‡
Round Rock Rio Grande San Gabriel Elgin Eastview Northridge Riverside South Austin
† new campus in Del Valle ‡ explanation and reopening
SOURCE: AUSTIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
Austin ISD starts new scal year
2020-21 2021-22 2022-23*
$1.45B
BY DARCY SPRAGUE
$1.57B
AUSTIN ISD On Oct. 1, Austin ISD will start the 2022-23 scal year with a $1.68 billion budget. The budget, passed June 23, is centered on retaining teachers and sta , according to the district. The budget provides a $1,000 annual pay bump and 2% raise for teachers
State revenue $71.45M 2020-21 2021-22 $64.63M $62.64M 2022-23* Federal revenue
$1.66B total revenue projected for 2022-23
$43.53M $105.1M $19.97M
2020-21 2021-22 2022-23*
*2022 23 PROJECTED REVENUE
SOURCE: AUSTIN ISD COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
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NORTH CENTRAL AUSTIN EDITION • SEPTEMBER 2022
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